The Jeffersons

Next to Bill Cosby‘s Dr. Cliff Huxtable, Sherman Hemsley’s George Jefferson – the upwardly mobile but still habitually cranky protagonist of the long-running Norman Lear sitcom The Jeffersons – may have been the most distinctive and memorable African-American comedic character in the history of television. For Hemsley, who passed away yesterday at age 74 in El Paso, Texas, it was a measure of his acting talent that he could make George Jefferson’s irascible, rapid-fire sarcasm seem so authentic and natural. As a 1987 profile …